Trash: Chapter 156 Spoils of Battle (Patreon)

Chapter 156

Spoils of Battle

There are few times in life when you make a purchase, and you instantly see its benefits presented in ways that show you might have underpaid for the level of support you get. You thought you already had a good deal, but then you suddenly realize that the deal has extra layers of benefits that you didn’t even know existed. This would be the equivalent of finding out that your Roomtzar could not just clean floors and walls, but that it could also paint the walls evenly as it went. Just set it with the paint color you wanted, then go away to your grind of a twelve-hour day at work, only to come back and find your bathroom walls are perfect, that type of benefit.

That is the benefit I was now seeing with Marcus Ghulam, an extra of the team. What would have been an Auxiliary spot originally, had we had a spot open for him, is now just a decorated instructor for the team. Though the term instructor is far too lacking for the level of institutional knowledge that he possesses after being here for so many cycles.

“All right,” Marcus begins grabbing the team’s attention after he gave us a few minutes to celebrate. “The first thing we need to do is to register the win.”

“Register?” Lucia and Luna ask in near unison.

“Yes, normally we would do this to recuperate some capital after the loss, for yes, even if you lose, your team will not be destitute,” Marcus began as he began walking and talking, assuming that the rest of us would follow. He took us down a back staircase that wound through a slightly disused hallway, speaking the whole time.

“This is a campus designed to teach you the struggles of battle and war. You are meant to make wagers on your team. It is also assumed that for every victory there will be a defeat, as such there are multiple ways to earn your credits back. I could tell you them all, but it might make more sense to see the read out, and then I explain it to you all, line by line,” Marcus continued, somehow ending his speech as he took us out to the main hallway where a number of students were all placing their hands on flat crystals.

“These are transaction stones; any purchases or barters made between two or more individuals that are logged by their own systems will be formalized here,” Marcus began then moving to an open stone he placed his hand on the stone causing it to glow for a moment.

“Just touching the stone allows the stone and university to register everything about me. Any Skill growths, any transactions made since my last interaction with these stones. It doesn’t matter which stone you access, as they are all linked together. Meaning you don’t have to wait for a specific transaction stone to open up,” Marcus continued his knowledge on full display as he continued.

“Now you just had your assessment, and therefore your baseline will not have changed by much. Only the changes you received from the duel, and of course the wager, along with our contract will be the noted changes that should appear,” Marcus stated, as the orb began to dim at his touch, before he gestured for me to come up and place my own hand on the orb.

The minute I touched the orb, I felt a slight tingling sensation, that almost reminded me of touching a more powerful version of a plasma ball. Just touching the sphere, I could almost see arcs of light firing upwards, tracing my hand and causing my system to tingle.

Though, this time when I touched the orb, I noticed something odd about the sphere itself. There deep at the core, through the dense layer of obsidian outer coating that provided both a protective layer and level of mystery to the orb, I saw it. Clear and unmistakable, almost like some form of ancient branding one might associate with a company.

For there glowing at the core of the transaction stone was the one word “SySTEM.”

Just looking at it caused my mind to go into overdrive, as it seemed that STEM was capitalized for a reason. Just as Sy had a lowercase ‘y’ that I couldn’t explain. Was STEM an acronym? Did it have some deeper meaning? I honestly couldn't tell, but before I got sidetracked with my own thoughts of what STEM could mean, my status changes were presented quickly line by line.

Skill Base Current

Streamline Healing* 148 149

Golden Life Ratio Mana Regeneration* 161 163

Life Reinforced Movements* 56 59

Earth Resonation 24 26

Dance Specialization 10 13

Divine Music Resonance 150 151

Strategist* 128 130

Trash 214 215

Surprisingly, I used a lot of Skills during the battle. While they didn’t go up by much individually, this was the work of a few hours that showed nearly immediate results. Also, most of these Skills have cumulative effects, which were immediately noted on the increases to my Attributes.

Attribute(s) Updated Base Current

Strength 182 184

Dexterity 213 215

Stamina 205 207

Perception 257 259

Intelligence 234 236

Mana 213 215

*Life Mana 91 97

I guess I didn’t make enough changes to increase my Luck or Resistance Attributes, which is why those two were seemingly left off this update. However, the system, or SySTEM, was not done recording changes.

Authorized Team Purchase: Services of Marcus Ghulum, 100 credits deducted from your team’s available resource pool.

There it is, somehow it feels official, now that I see it in writing and acknowledge by these transaction orbs. However, I don’t have much time to think about this as, the messages continue.

Binding Oath registered.

Processing…

Details found and confirmed.

Honor Duel between Maximus Zubal and Catarine Bloom has been concluded.

No allegations of foul play.

Instructor on hand as witness.

No objections observed, commencing transaction of earnings.

There was a slight pause, as I could see the glow for the SySTEM logo dim just slightly, before flashing to life with a sudden burst of light and energy that almost caused me to shrink back from the orb. While I did flinch, I was used to plasma balls from my past life and found that this was nothing too alarming.

“Oh, surprising,” Marcus replied watching me expectantly.

“What is?” I ask, as I see more lines of the details of the duel pass by in my mind.

“Most people jump off the stand and stand back a few feet. However, you just stood there,” Marcus replied. What could I say, that I had already experienced these in a past life and was used to these types of events? Fortunately, the final lines of the text came to distract me.

Total Team Credits Earned: 695

“695!” I shout, my mind instantly seeing the number of credits earned and being impressed by it. At this, my mind goes back to remembering that each current team member received a onetime boost of 250 credits. While that might seem like a lot, it actually only allowed for a minor bit of wiggle room, as 100 of those credits were for initial starter gear, and 100 for classes, which only left for 50 credits to act with. It was this same excess of fifty credits that we were able to purchase Marcus’ services.

“Oh, that little?” Marcus asked.

“That little?” I ask back.

“Yeah, I counted dozens of people placing wagers, it should be higher. Though we might have to wait for everyone else to register their bets, so that you can get your full earnings,” Marcus continued. “Good call by the way, of drawing everyone’s attention to the fight by whistling. That is a strategy that many don’t start to employ until much later.”

“Wait? What? I think I am missing something,” I press.

“Okay, sorry. You are right. I forgot this is your first day. Okay, let me take a step back and explain the whole subsidized fighting venture with you,” Marcus stated, then taking a breath to calm himself, he began again. “This is a University designed to teach us all to fight. As such, there are methods that are used to make winning better and losing not as devastating. Now that you know your total earnings, you can see an itemized breakdown if you focus on the total and dig into it the way you would for any of your Skills to see how they impact your Attribute growth.”

Hearing the instructions, I focus on the rewards total and then begin seeing the total highlighted and broken down line by line. All being displayed clearly in the orb.

Duel Rewards Breakdown

Maximus Zabal’s Team: 150

Kerli Lootus’s Team: 150

First Time Duel: 100

Winner’s 10% Betting Pool Earnings: 295 +3

Total Team Credits Earned: 698

Seeing the number, I couldn’t help but notice that my Winner’s pool portion just increased by three credits in real time. As I was looking at the changes, Marcus came over and began breaking down each line.

“As this was your first time dueling, your maximum bet placed was capped at 300 team credits. This will be the default until you get to your second year here. This is done as a cautionary method to protect you and your team from being completely destitute. Additionally, you can do things like we see here where both Mr. Zabal and Ms. Lootus split the losses. This was done as Mr. Zabal fought on Ms. Lootus’s behalf. Thus, during a loss, both split the losses evenly. Know they would have split the winnings equally had Mr. Zabal won. Added to this was your first time duel reward. Normally, everyone only gets 50 credits for just participating in a duel, but your first time it is doubled to encourage you.” There is a slight pause as he then adds, “it is also doubled as you are assumed to lose your first duel. Meaning this bonus is just there to take away the sting.”

“Then finally, you have your earnings from all the wagers that were placed on the duel. Winners get 10% of all bets placed, while losers still get a 5% commission. Thus, your opponents would get half or close to 150 credits for their part in the loss, which they will have to split evenly, along with the base 50 credits for dueling,” Marcus explains. From this, while the two fellow healers lost a total of three hundred credits, they made back two hundred from these after market deals.

“Not too bad,” Junior cut in, hearing the exchange and suddenly seeming excited about the unexpected windfall coming our way.

“Again, this was designed to make it so losing wouldn’t be so catastrophic, for while you would have lost three hundred credits, you would have made back two hundred and fifty credits this time, or two hundred if this was your second fight,” Marcus stated.

Hearing him speak, I realized that while I might have spent a hundred credits on his services to this point, it was money well spent. For in the course of one day, he helped me turn that one hundred credit deficit, to a 598 net in the positive. Granted the credits would have always been there for me, ready for me to grab whenever I found out about this device myself. But having someone guide me through the process was invaluable, and helped make everything much easier to understand.

Looking around, I could see more and more people making transactions, likely registering their bets with the SySTEM records. But just seeing each student go up to the podium, many of whom look dejected told me exactly who they picked for their bets. I almost felt bad for them, but then there were a few who looked excited.

“Yes, always bet on the underdog,” two exclaimed as they went up to the pillar and received their earnings. They split up, each going to an open orb and placed their hands down. Then I could see the activation of the plasma globe, a pulse of light exchange between them and the orb. Then they got off the stand and excitedly went about their day.

While there were a few who wagered on me, most seemed reluctant to go up to the stone, but still did so anyways. Seeing them, I was not alone in wondering why they did this, as Lucia chose that moment to ask, “why would those that lost their bets register them?”

“Good question, basically they are locked to one open wager at a time. Thus, even if they found something else to bet against, they couldn’t until this one was logged and cleared. Also, realize that the students aren’t wagering against each other, but with the system itself,” Marcus began.

“Wait, with the system?” Junior asked.

“Yes, by entering the arena above you enter into a field where the system has direct ability to interact with anyone in the stands. They offer live betting odds and will adjust their offers based on how bets are going. Then when a team member makes a wager, they will bet on their own personal pool of credits that remain. That two hundred and fifty, well fifty is considered extra, meaning each person initially has access to fifty credits to wager,” Marcus continued. As usual, showing just how intricate and complex this whole system was. While the others dug deeper into the types of wagers and limits, I was more concerned with seeing how a stadium acted like a gambling hotspot.

Also, there was still the odd, but unmistakable SySTEM logo that seemed to rest at the core of every transaction stone. Each logo is a reminder that something greater lay behind the system that we all know and use.

“You ready to see the dorms?” Marcus asked after seeing me stare off into space for a bit, while I tried to understand everything. Pausing for a moment, I realized that we were just getting started here, though I would be back to find out more about the underlying nature of this world. A world that suddenly seemed far more familiar than I would like it to be.

“Yes, let’s see the dorms,” I replied, and like that our day continued.